Saturday, December 05, 2009

Danger Supplement #1: Sunday

Okay, here's the system: Daily (or perhaps every-other-daily) I'll provide you with my typical pictures and words on what happened on a day in Brazil. But then on the next day I'm going to make a post of the crazy things that happened on each of those days, the dangerous things, the longer paragraphs which would probably wind up being ignored in my longer posts. Let's begin.

Oh! And at least read #3, it is IMPORTANT. It is the beginning to major events that shaped the trip!

#1 Shoeshine Scam?: While out on my first walks through Rio, shortly after discovering the giant turtle, I found myself in front of my first Brazilian McDonalds. Ever fascinated by the McDonalds of other lands, I found myself transfixed by the menus and became oblivious to the world. I was snatched from my fixation by a shoe shiner fellow hunching over and trying to get at my feet. I jumped away as I had read that these guys would get up on your shoes without asking and then you'd owe them dough. I both didn't want to pay this guy for a shining of my sneakers and knew I only had large bills. Shoeshine beggers, not likely to make change, right?

BUT this shoe shiner had a mission, he kept pointing that I had something on my shoe...indeed I did. Some sort of great green glob. What it was I didn't know, I still don't know, but this is my belief: that the shoe shiner globbed my shoe while I was staring at the menu. With him chasing me, hunched over and holding paper towels, I hopped away down the street. I cleaned the shoe on my own, the green glob, whatever it was, was foul. In considering my path I cannot think of an instance where, say, a bird would have been able to make such a large mess on my foot. And only on my foot,nowhere on my leg or sock or knee or wherever else. I choose to continue to call trickery on that shiner.

#2 The Ocean Taught Me a Lesson: You may ask, but Brigham, when you went to the beach on Sunday didn't you swim in the ocean? Yes, of course I did, and the ocean taught me a lesson. Waves were high, strong, and mighty that day and after only a little frolicking and wavedaring I got absolutely nailed, totally pummeled by one that I'd like to say came out of nowhere but probably I swam right into it. At first impact I was like "Haha, you got me wave" but as I felt myself tumble down and could feel my swimsuit loosening and pulling away I knew this wasn't a joke. I strongly believe that I hit my head in my tumbles but definitely know I hit my shoulder real good and hard because it was very sore for the rest of the week (I mean real sore, like I couldn't raise my arm above my head for the first day and a half) and I was often lifting my shirt and asking my travel buddies if they saw a bruise (they never did). In my tumbling beneath the water I resolved to get out of there as soon as I re-emerged, conveniently this turned into one of those comical situations where, after the main wave, two more follow up waves had their way with me before I could regain my footing and return to basecamp. It only took me a few minutes of reflection to understand why this had happened to me. At least I'm not a missionary, at least I didn't violate the Biblia Blanca.

#3 Bizarre Middle of the Night Confrontation that Ties into the Next Day's Craziest Things: This one is important because it ties into a crazy story that will be told about Monday! Sunday night Chateau, Noelle, Trish and I shared our hostel room with three dudes. They were all in their bunks sleeping or almost sleeping (we shared triple bunks) when we got home that night. There was a funny incident where one of them got out of bed in his little underwears (not exactly tighty whiteys as they were patterned or something) and walked across the room to turn off the light while giving his mouth a few spritzes of Binaca. But later there was an unfunny incident where, at some point in the middle of the night, I am awoken because the lights are on and this dude is kind of yelling at Chateau, who was on the top bunk of the same stacks of beds as this dude. I was half asleep and wearing earplugs when it happened, but this dude was all like "Listen, I tried to be understanding about this, I asked you to stop shaking the bed, I went outside for a cigarette...and you're still shaking the bed! Would you stop shaking the bed!" (listen, I don't remember it perfectly well and those definitely weren't his words [and I don't say that to indicate he was swearing, he wasn't, but he was being very weird]) and then I hear Chateau, groggily, "Dude...I'm asleep." I fell back asleep after that real soon, but the takeaway from this is: Crazy dormmate, yelling at Chateau, something about shaking the bed...STAY TUNED, this is just a Part One of something CRAZY.